A Magical Time
by trekfreak2008
Summary: Against all odds, Voldemort discovers the existence of Time Lords and decides that he wants their secrets for himself. How far will he go, and will the Doctor be able to stop him? And, more importantly, what effect will this have on the wizarding world?
1. Prologue

**Prologue.**

The tall, deathly pale man stood in a forest clearing surrounded by figures in cloaks and masks. He would have preferred the weather to be cold, thunderous, possibly with a hint of lightning, but he couldn't control everything, sadly. He kept his hood lowered, protecting his eyes from the setting sun, and tried to resist the urge to roll up his sleeves in the late summer heat. His followers shuffled around nervously, some of them periodically reaching up under their masks to wipe away sweat.

Apart from these details, however, they simply did not exist. Followers only existed while they were useful, and until that point they were to be ignored. In the earlier days, when his power had been stronger, he had been a flatterer. He had known exactly which point to find and press – he had been able to read a person's soul within minutes of meeting them.

Of course, he could still do all of those things, but he chose not to, for the most part. Flattery had led to his followers becoming conceited, which had led to them becoming lazy. And that laziness had very nearly killed him, that fateful day. He could still remember the feeling of his body being ripped from the earth, his soul flung into what might as well have been nothingness. No, it was far better to only give them attention when it was due. Good or bad.

His life as the back of the Idiot's head had thankfully been relatively short lived. But much as he had hated the Idiot, he had been useful, if only because he had been ignored in large crowds. The Pale Man had never before truly appreciated the very real power of the quiet, the easily intimidated. But as the Back of the Head, it had shone like a beacon.

Of course, the Idiot had never known that what he was hearing would one day be useful. And that had made it even easier – he had been able to order him into more crowds without raising suspicion, that way. Muggle-born people were, though he loathed saying it, quite interesting, if only because they watched a lot of silly television. But it was that silly television that had brought him here today.

The Pale Man glided forward and inspected the cage in the middle of the clearing, making sure that it was indeed solid and that nothing could break out. He withdrew his wand and performed diagnostic tests. Behind him, the sound of shuffling grew louder, but this time with a distinctly nervous edge to it. Good. The more nervous they were, the more they would fear failing him.

He had heard a whisper here, a whisper there, usually in hushed voices, as though the speakers were afraid of being discovered. _I started John Pertwee today. _At first, he had been dismissive. He was Lord Voldemort, he did not need to listen to this drivel! But then someone had mentioned alternate universes. And alternate realities.

And that thought, stupid though it had seemed, had stuck in Lord Voldemort's mind. He had often thought of different outcomes to his actions, of things he could have done, had he known the future. If he hadn't gone after the Potter brat, his life would be different. A non-existent possibility now, but it had existed before. His thoughts had, without him really wanting them to, kept circling back to the ridiculous television show.

He had forced Quirrel back into the Three Broomsticks a month later, and with luck had found more Muggle-borns discussing similar things.

_If the Doctor went back in time and changed it, doesn't that mean it never happened? _

_Blimey, he can be really vicious, that one. You can see why the Daleks are afraid of him. _

_I've heard his real name is too dangerous to say. _

With nothing better to do, being the back of a head, Voldemort had found himself ordering Quirrel to find out what this _Doctor Who_ thing was. Quirrel had managed to find a cheap Muggle television, tape player, and Doctor Who tapes. Voldemort was hardly overwhelmed by the First incarnation.

Until, of course, he died. And came back. Younger. And suddenly, Voldemort had desperately wanted the alternate reality theory to be real. For Doctor Who to be real. Because if it was, he could win the war.

He lowered his wand. The cage was secure. He began to pace around it, still lost to the past.

He had researched, had found mention of things that made no sense, scattered across history. Almost as if there had been some external force influencing the way the world developed – whether accidentally or intentionally (how was it even _possible_ that Muggles had built the pyramids?) – before that influence had mysteriously begun to peter out until becoming non-existent in the present day.

And at some points in history, he found mentions of The Doctor and Time Lords. Strange how a 17th century monk with an infestation of moving angels in his church had known of a 20th century television show. And strange how said character from the fictional television show had managed to get rid of the angels.

It was just such a shame that the idea came from _Mudbloods_.

Voldemort angrily shook himself from his reverie and lifted his head so that his gaze swept around the circle of Death Eaters. "Are you all ready?"

A man he recognised as Lucius Malfoy stepped forwards, his hair shining in the sunset. "We have learnt the invitation, my Lord." He bowed slightly.

Voldemort nodded. "Very good, Lucius. We shall see whether it has been learnt to my satisfaction."

"Yes, my Lord." Malfoy ducked back into the circle of Death Eaters.

"As I explained during our last meeting," Voldemort continued, "concentration is vital. If I feel that any of you have not lived up to your potential, you will be considered to have failed me. And there will be consequences," he added, almost as a malicious afterthought.

A murmur of "understood my Lord" and "yes, my Lord" swept through the increasingly nervous circle.

"Then let us begin."

Voldemort took his place in front of the cage, eyes almost boring a hole in its exterior, and raised his wand. Around him, wands were raised and throats were cleared. He cleared his mind of all distractions, and focused on his intent.

In his cold, high voice, Voldemort began chanting, hearing the slightly nervous voices of the Death Eaters joining him. He could only hope that his efforts had not been in vain.

oOo

The Doctor ran back into the TARDIS and slammed the door shut, ignoring the sound of firing lasers as he dashed up to the control panel. He sent the TARDIS careering into the vortex and sat down on the pilot's chair, panting slightly from all the running.

Ok, so Melody Pond _definitely_ wasn't there, and he was never allowed back while still in this regeneration, or he would become his next one very prematurely indeed. Or possibly end up dead, which was definitely not cool. And wouldn't help him find Melody – River (which one to use?) - either.

He ran a hand over his face and tried to regroup. _Ok_, he thought. _Ok? That's it, that's all you have? What happened to that brain of yours, eh?_

He had searched all the places he could think of, knowing that she would have been raised on Earth but not knowing when. Or, for that matter, where. Finding out who she was had been surreal, he had to admit, even for him. There was just something odd about meeting your… whatever River was, he still hadn't quite decided… when she was a baby, and then find that you've been kissing said baby when she's older. And that _River Song_ was a Pond? He flushed bright red whenever _that_ thought popped into his mind.

He had popped into Stormcage several times since losing Melody, just to touch base, to make sure that she really did still exist and hadn't been murdered in cold blood by Kovarian. And it _definitely_ didn't have anything to do with begging River to tell him where to find her. Not. At. All.

He huffed. Why did time travel have to be so _difficult_, and why did River Song/Melody Pond have to be so _good_ at keeping spoilers secret? Sometimes he thought the universe was laughing at him.

"You know I can't tell you, Sweetie," he mimicked in a high pitched voice, annoyed. Stupid preserving the timelines. He was just about to continue the impression, having worked up the perfect facial expression to go with River's particular way of saying "spoilers" when the console went berserk.

"Hey, oh, ok," he exclaimed, flailing around the console, not really knowing where to begin, "Sexy, calm down! What is it?"

The monitor flashed red and black, and the TARDIS jerked to the side, throwing the Doctor into a railing, where he clung for dear life. As he tried valiantly to climb up the near vertical floor of the console room, the Doctor briefly pondered the possibility of grappling hooks and ice picks. It would certainly make his job easier when the TARDIS had one of her funny turns. Eventually he reached the console, and pulled himself up on it, staring at the screen.

"That can't be right!" He shouted to himself over the sound of flying sparks and frantic engines. "How can that even be happening?"

He was about to add more when a sudden image of Donna Noble appearing on his TARDIS flitted through his mind. "Oh. Right. But in reverse?" He frantically pushed buttons and pulled levers. "Can you reverse it?" He asked the TARDIS.

The engines growled louder, telling him that she was desperately trying to get away from whatever power was infiltrating her, but was unable to. Before the Doctor could even react, he saw the console room fading from his vision-

_But this is impossible_!

-and he was roughly deposited on the ground. He bounded to his feet immediately, whipping out his sonic screwdriver and using his other hand to get his hair out of his eyes so he could see where he was.

A cage. He stepped forward and sonic-ed it, looking at the readings in confusion. Wood. Well then. He tried to force his way out, but the wood would not budge. He frowned.

"I really need to invent a setting for wood," he muttered to himself, willing himself to remember this time, but knowing he would forget. Perhaps it was his trademark, not being able to sonic wood. Should he even have a trademark, and if so, was that even a good one?

He threw himself at the cage and promptly bounced off and onto the floor, reeling from the impact. "Ow!" That had felt like concrete.

"Ohhh-kay," he muttered to himself, sonic-ing the wood again and this time paying more attention. There was something around, in or on the wood that the sonic was not identifying. "Oh, this is very not good."

He whipped around, examining his surroundings for the first time, squinting slightly in the dim light, and his jaw very nearly went slack with confusion. All around him were people in masks and cloaks. And they were staring at him. And were those _sticks_ they were pointing at him?

"Who are you?" he asked, raising his voice, and trying his best to sound non-threatening and, more importantly, extremely not worried. "What do you want?"

A man without a mask walked forward. He was humanoid in appearance, the Doctor noted. Abnormally pale, though that could be normal for his species, whatever that was. The Doctor sniffed the air.

Earth. Though with a slight twang that didn't quite ring true. Very, very not good. He remembered the last time he had noticed a twang.

The pale man came closer, standing just outside the Doctor's cage, now. The Doctor absently wondered if he had misplaced his nose, given that the masks on all the others were shaped to accommodate them.

"Ah, hello. You must be the leader," he said conversationally. "Guess I don't have to ask someone to take me to you, now. Which is a shame," he added as an afterthought, when the man simply stared at him. "I've always loved saying that phrase."

"You are the Doctor."

"Er… yes, that's me, the Doctor," he agreed. "Hello." He stopped himself from waving. Now probably wasn't the time. Cults didn't really like it when you waved at them. He had never really understood why.

"You are not familiar to me."

"Oh!" he exclaimed, making several of the Maskies jump. "Is it the new face? I get that all the time. I really should send round a memo. Though if it makes you feel any better, I don't know who you are either."

The pale man narrowed his eyes. "Yes, it is you."

The Doctor nodded. "Ok. Good. But who are you? You haven't told me yet, and that's just rude."

The man turned away from him.

"Then again kind of expected for a man who puts his guests in cages," he muttered to himself.

"We have succeeded," the man said in a cold, high voice. "You may now leave. Except for you, Lucius, and for you, Bellatrix. Your services are still required."

The Doctor noted without surprise that most people seemed fairly eager to leave, a relieved sigh almost echoing at the strange man's words. What he didn't expect, however, was for them to walk out of the clearing – which shimmered – and to simply disappear. If he was right – and he usually was, eventually – the period of Earth's history that he was in did not yet have the technology for that.

He filed it away in his mind under the label "interesting".

"Bellatrix, Lucius, I need you both to take the prisoner to his new quarters." He paused for a moment to make sure they had understood, before adding, "Do not let him out of his cage until necessary. I will know immediately if he escapes."

Both Bellatrix and Lucius bowed deeply. "Yes, my Lord."

The man nodded and turned away, walking out of the clearing, which shimmered again – how can a clearing _shimmer_ on Earth? – before disappearing. The Doctor looked back to the two assistants.

"So," he asked with false cheer, "either of you feel like telling me what's going on?"

oOo

**Author's Note:** So what do you think? Like it or hate it? As always, reviews are appreciated, and please do tell me if you feel the characters are out of character, or if you have spotted a plot anomaly, because it will help me to make the rest of the story better. :)


	2. Wait till you read book 7

**Author's Note:**Thank you to all those who have read so far, and thank you to those who have reviewed. It's lovely to know what you think, and I hope you continue to enjoy it. :D

**1. Wait till you read book 7.**

The Doctor felt the earth tremble as his cage was raised into the air. He whipped his head around and stared at the followers names Lucius and Bellatrix. "What is that, how are you doing that? This is 20th century Earth – you don't have the technology for anti-gravity remotes yet!"

Bellatrix sneered at him. "Stupid Muggle doesn't even recognise magic."

Lucius looked as though he might snort if he were a less restrained man. "Pitiful."

The Doctor gaped, memories flashing through his mind at lightning speed. "Muggles?" He repeated, his voice completely incredulous. "Did you really just say _Muggles_?"

_Wait till you read book 7. Oh, I cried. _

"Oh," he muttered, as his tenth incarnation's voice faded from his mind, "this is very not good. I'm getting thick in my old age, thick!" He smacked his forehead to illustrate his point. "But what do you want me for? I'm no one special."

His two captors continued to levitate him through the forest, letting his cage bang into the occasional tree, ignoring him.

The Doctor tried again. "Your leader," he said, "Voldemort-"

"Do not speak the Dark Lord's name!" Bellatrix suddenly screeched, going from relatively calm and smug to completely unhinged in the matter of a few milliseconds.

The Doctor blinked, taken aback. "It's just a name," he said, trying to ignore the irony that it was _him_ saying this.

"Nevertheless," Lucius interjected, once it became clear that Bellatrix was too close to exploding to contribute further, "it must not be spoken."

"Why?"

"Respect," Lucius said, simply. "You do not call your professor by their first name, do you?"

"Reasonable point," the Doctor conceded reluctantly. "Would you look at that? A Malfoy being reasonable," he said to himself. "But," he continued, loud enough for the others to hear him, "this… Dark Lord, he knows me."

Bellatrix snickered, going back to smug now that the Doctor had conceded the name point. And he was ok with that, for the moment. Ordinarily he wouldn't have many qualms about angering his captors in the quest for information, but here… he looked at their wands, warily. They had magic, and he had nothing but a _screwdriver_. A screwdriver that didn't do wood.

"How does he know me?" The Doctor continued, grasping the bars of his cage tightly as it was sent careering into another tree. "And, more importantly, why?"

"He has been informed of your attributes," was all that Lucius had to say.

The Doctor almost sighed. "Very enigmatic. Then again, that's to be expected, isn't it? Very Slytherin."

Bellatrix and Lucius stopped immediately, turning to stare at him. "What did you say?" Bellatrix asked dangerously.

The Doctor stared back at them innocently, inwardly berating himself for his slip up. Definitely getting old and stupid. "Er," he said, trying not to sound as if he was desperately scrabbling for an explanation, "I said that it was very… sly…" they continued to stare disbelievingly at him, "there… in?"

"That is not a sentence," Lucius sneered.

This time the Doctor did sigh. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"You've heard of Slytherin," Bellatrix said, walking closer to the cage so that she and the Doctor were now face to face.

The Doctor lifted up a finger and felt his brain slide into Pedantic Mode, as he liked to call it. "Well, technically I also knew the name of your leader, and you weren't even shocked by that."

Lucius looked at him, considering the possibilities. "Very true. Come, Bellatrix." He jerked his head forwards to indicate that they should keep going. "We must not keep the Dark Lord waiting."

"Yes," the Doctor babbled, "exactly, don't want to keep him waiting. Not when he can torture you."

They both ignored him. _Ok_, he thought, _so they're just as devoted as they are in the books. I wonder what's actually different. _He briefly considered the possibility that Voldemort might have a pet monkey instead, or possibly a Chihuahua.

_No no no! Don't be stupid! He's the _Dark Wizard_, he can't have something fluffy as a mascot! _

Is it a mascot, though? Surely it was more of a pet.

_Shut up. I'm not having this conversation with you. Not while we're stuck in a cage and this evil wizard you seem to be laughing at could eat you at any moment. _

_Eat_ me?

_Shut up_.

The Doctor snorted internally. Looked like somebody was too used to being chased and almost eaten by giant star whales. He wondered what else he'd almost been eaten by. Though probably not the time to wonder that, in all fairness, since this was after all practically the Situation of Doom, though he wasn't quite sure yet.

_Not sure? How can you not be sure? You're a Time Lord, aren't you?_

Well, yes, there was that. The Doctor's eyes went wide. Oh. Yes, that reminded him. _That_ was why it was the Situation of Doom. Voldemort plus Time Lord equals disaster. He should probably count his lucky stars that Voldemort hadn't found the Master.

But _why_ hadn't he found the Master? Or had he? He didn't like where this was going.

"So where are you taking me?" He asked, if only so they wouldn't be suspicious of his silence. And because he was curious. "Do you have a tree house base?"

"A what?" Bellatrix snapped. Apparently being confused didn't agree with her.

"Oh, it's a house made out of trees," the Doctor happily explained. "Sort of a… you know, tree house. Must be a Muggle thing…"

He fell silent when it became apparent that they were not about to his answer his questions, and seemed quite happy to crash him into trees when he did ask them. Not the friendliest captors he'd ever had, he had to admit, but they also weren't the worst. Maybe that was disturbing, that he'd been caught by worse than Voldemort, but this was early days and the Nose-less Man wasn't out of the running yet.

After what felt like hours they finally arrived at an area of the forest that shimmered when they walked through. A building suddenly appeared in the clearing.

Perception filter. No… wait, revise that. A spell of some sort. He suddenly wished he'd read those books more recently, rather than leaving them on a shelf gathering dust after Martha Jones had left. Somehow the word 'Expelliarmus' just wasn't the same anymore.

The building seemed inconspicuous enough – quite small, plainly decorated, at least from the outside. If this was Headquarters, it certainly didn't look like it.

_Yes but the tent at the Quidditch World Cup was bigger on the inside. _

Ah. One less piece of information they'd want from him, then. He had to be grateful for something. That and the TARDIS didn't appear to be anywhere near them. He hated to think what Voldemort could do with the TARDIS' capabilities. _Especially_ if he got into her databases. He hated to think of the most evil wizard in history deciding to find this world's version of the Cybermen or Daleks. If there even were any.

He was none-too-gently floated through the front door and his suspicions were proved correct: bigger on the inside. There was a long corridor stretching before him, with doors branching off to left and right, with a door at the very end. Simple enough to navigate, if he had to escape. If he even could escape, he thought dismally, as he heard Bellatrix placing wards of some sort on the door after they were through.

"So what's this, then?" The Doctor asked. "Headquarters?"

"No," Lucius replied tersely.

"This is the prison," Bellatrix said gleefully. Someone had a favourite place, then. She walked over to the nearest door, tapped on it with her wand, and lifted her head to the ceiling, closing her eyes, seeming to relish in the sound that followed.

Screaming instantly filled the corridor, and the Doctor had to fight very hard to keep his face neutral.

"Where are they?" Someone yelled above the screaming. "Where are the Order of the Phoenix?"

So it was that one.

The screaming didn't stop, not for a single second, almost as if the person being tortured had no reason to breathe. The Doctor's fists clenched by his sides. Stop it. _Just stop_.

Lucius tapped on the door and silence fell once more. "That is enough, Bellatrix. You know that we are not privy to that… interrogation."

"Old Snake Face likes to keep his secrets then?" The Doctor asked, not caring that Bellatrix's expression grew thunderous at this new nickname. "Does he kill the torturers afterwards? If so, you two are in big, _big_ trouble."

"There is no need," Lucius supplied, grinning smugly. "A simple memory spell suffices."

"Or so he tells you," he snorted, rapidly losing patience with the both of them. "Wouldn't want your minions fleeing in terror. That's just bad planning."

Bellatrix snarled and, with a vicious flick of her wand, sent the Doctor and his cage hurtling into the far door. Looked like he wasn't the only one losing his patience.

The Doctor groaned and rolled over, expecting to find himself covered in the wreckage of his cage, but finding, to his surprise, that it was still standing. And fairing much better than him, he had to say. Not a dent. He, on the other hand, felt distinctly dizzy when he stood.

"Bellatrix," Lucius admonished, "you'll distract the others."

The Doctor stared at him. Was it just his memory playing up, or was this version of Lucius slightly more… evil? He heard a click behind him and felt Lucius carefully levitating him into his cell at the end of the corridor, where he was plunged instantly into darkness.

Lucius stood framed in the doorway, wand lazily keeping him floating in the air. "You will know soon enough when you will be of use," he stated in a drawling voice, before flourishing his wand once. "_Finite Incantatem_."

The Doctor suddenly found himself floating in a cage without the cage, or the floating, and crashed, for the third time that day, into a very cold, hard surface. The door to his cell slammed shut. The Doctor picked himself up off the floor and hurled himself at the door before it locked, not at all surprised when he was thrown off his feet by an invisible force field before he could even get near it.

_Well_, Donna's voice suddenly filled his head, as he lay groaning on the floor, _isn't this _wizard?

oOo

It had been hours. Possibly days – revise that, definitely days, he concluded. He had been left in a dark cell, the only light being a pathetically small barred window set almost in the ceiling; the only sign he had of the time that was passing. He didn't quite trust his time sense in this time stream.

He had prowled around the cell approximately fifty times before concluding that there was nothing but a bucket inside. He had tried to climb the walls five times but had never even managed to get off the ground – his efforts had consisted of feeling along the wall and, finding no crevices that he could use as hand or foot holds, jumping higher up to see if there were any there. There were none; the walls were as smooth as a baby's bottom.

He hung his head. And now he was getting his metaphors mixed up.

His stomach growled. Ok, make that two days. And, quite apart from anything else, he was rapidly getting bored. He had already been through every escape plan that he had in his head – conclusion: escape was not likely to happen in the near future. He had considered the possibilities as to why he was here – easy: they wanted something from him. They always did. Probably knowledge of some sort; he did know quite a lot, after all. And he had also concluded that the TARDIS was probably still in his own universe (he hoped) because, if not, they would have the answers they needed and would have no need for him, since he had had no time to put up any safety measures before he had been sucked out of it. Or when he had entered it, for that matter, since he had been running for his life.

He was in the Potterverse, as he liked to call it for the past two days. That was most definitely unexpected. He had probably been pulled into it by a magical spell – an insanely powerful one, apparently, since it managed to punch a hole between universes which were closed to each other _and_ yank him out of the TARDIS while it was still in the vortex – and he had no idea how to get out. Well, that wasn't quite true, he did have a few, but most of them depended on him being free. Though he did still have his sonic screwdriver. So maybe they weren't as thorough as he had previously surmised and he would have an opportunity for escape at some point, but it could just as easily be because they knew it was useless.

But if they _did_ know that it was useless, how did they know that? He couldn't remember having been to this universe before, so how could they all know so much about him? It didn't quite add up. He must be missing something. And it was, as always, a very big something.

Why did he always have to miss the big things? Why not something small? That was just unfair.

Before he could fall into more ponderings, his cell door swung open and the force field shimmered. The Doctor stood up warily, stretching his legs as he went. There was a reason he hated being cooped up.

Blinking against the suddenly harsh light that flooded his cell, the Doctor was unable to make out who had walked in until the door swung shut again.

"Lumos."

A small point of light appeared between him and whoever had walked in, much easier on the eyes than the full on light of the corridor had been. Behind it was Bellatrix, grinning eerily, her eyes thrown into shadow by her wand. She definitely looked the part.

"He knows about us, my Lord," she said, and the Doctor looked to his left to see, to his dismay, Voldemort himself.

"Yes," Voldemort agreed in a cold voice, coming to stand closer to the Doctor, "Lucius mentioned that after the Summoning." He cocked his head slightly to the side and stared a hole through the Doctor. "How do you know about us, Doctor?"

"I might ask you the same question."

"I did some research," Voldemort stated simply.

"On what?" The Doctor asked, incredulous. "I've never been to this world before!"

"You do not remember the monk with the angel infestation?" Voldemort asked.

The Doctor blinked. "What? No, that was once, on a parallel Earth - there weren't _wizards_!"

Bellatrix laughed, causing Voldemort to flicker his eyes towards her briefly before redirecting his attention to the Doctor. "The wizarding world has always kept great pains to hide itself from the likes of Muggles, Doctor. Though you appear to be doing the same – there are only a few mentions of the real you, and always in very early history." He paused for a moment. "But how can you know now that wizards exist when before you seemed to know only of the Muggle world?"

"Perhaps," Bellatrix contributed, "the word of your mission is spreading among the Muggles, my Lord?"

Voldemort nodded. "Possible, but not likely. Doctor?"

The Doctor cleared his throat. "It's complicated."

Voldemort smiled slightly, though it was in no way friendly. The Doctor couldn't help but notice that his wand twitched in his hand. "Then try to explain."

"It's _really_ complicated." It wouldn't do to tell the lunatic that there were other universes beyond his, though he had a nasty feeling that Voldemort already knew. That, or he had mistaken the Doctor as being from this universe and had yet to realise his mistake.

Voldemort's face hardened. "Very well. Crucio!"

Before the Doctor could utter a single syllable he found himself collapsing heavily to the floor, every single nerve ending on fire, his guts melting, his brain frying, his hearts pumping around his body so madly it felt as though they may just leap out. And throughout all he could hear was Bellatrix laughing, just laughing, and silence from Voldemort. The Doctor contorted on the floor and finally let loose a scream, trying to tear himself away from a pain that felt almost as bad, if not worse, as regeneration itself. He felt like he was dying a thousand times over, like his very life force was being ripped from his body, and he suddenly found himself thinking of Hermione Granger, the Longbottoms, Harry Potter – all those who had been through this in the books. How had they stood it? How would they stand it?

And then as suddenly as it had come, it was gone, and the Doctor was left quivering and gasping on the floor, a fine sheen of sweat starting to break out on his forehead.

"Blimey," he muttered, not realising that he had spoken aloud until it was too late.

"How do you know of us?"

"How do you know of me?" He countered, pulling himself slowly back to his feet, trying not to sway.

Voldemort considered him for a moment. "Tell me about regeneration."

The Doctor blinked, completely thrown off track. "Sorry, what?"

"Regeneration," Voldemort said slowly, as if talking to an idiot, "the process of completely changing your body to avoid death."

"How do you know about that?"

"Oh, he is a stubborn one," Voldemort drawled to Bellatrix, who looked impatient for answers. He snapped his attention back to the Doctor. "It does not matter how I know," Voldemort said, before slowly smiling, pointing his wand at the Doctor once more. "In fact, I would say that it is the least of your concerns."

oOo

So what did you think? Like, hate, in the middle? As always, let me know if you think it could be improved in any way :)


	3. Family Visits

**2. Family Visits.**

Rory sighed as he walked through _their front door_ – he so loved saying that – and walked into _their house_. He still couldn't believe that he and Amy were married and living together. And that they were currently living in Leadworth, not the TARDIS. And Rory had to say that he was loving the distinct lack of bunk beds here. It was a definite plus.

What wasn't so much a definite plus, however, was the constant niggle of worry in the back of his mind that The Doctor would never find Melody. River. He shook his head like a horse shaking off flies. He never could wrap his head around all that timey-wimey… stuff. In fact, he could have sworn the Doctor just made half of it up so that he would look cool in front of Amy.

As if he needed to do that. He had a TARDIS and was basically an imaginary friend come to life – there was nothing about that that was not cool. The very opposite, in fact. He had to admit, he still felt jealous of the Time Lord, but then he thought back to the fact that Amy had chosen him, and he felt a little bit better. There was just something comforting about knowing that your wife killed herself and her unborn baby to be with you rather than with an eternally young, rocket scientist clever alien with access to all of time and space.

Rory blinked. Wait. Ok, so he could have phrased that better.

Which lead his thoughts inevitably back to their baby. Their _real_ baby, this time. The one that wasn't fake and killed in a car crash but the one that had been kidnapped while simultaneously popping and drenching Amy with goo. And who was now visiting them as a grown woman while refusing to say how she even knew or found them in the first place.

Yeah, he was definitely getting a headache. And was that a grey hair? He peered at himself in the hallway mirror, squinting at a slight glint almost out of sight on his head, contorting himself into awkward and painful positions in the process. Ok, so if he couldn't see it, it didn't exist. Good. He could live with that.

He contorted himself one last time, just to be sure.

"Aw," a Scottish voice suddenly drawled from over his shoulder, making him jump, "I know I said you could be a _bit_ more flexible, but practicing in front of a mirror?" She fake pouted. "You really are insecure, aren't you?"

"I wasn't… no, wait," he stuttered as Amy smirked and walked into the kitchen, "I was looking for grey hairs!"

"Why would _you_ be getting grey hairs?" She snorted, opening the fridge, pulling out some carrots, and shutting it with her hip while simultaneously whipping out a knife. "You're plastic."

"I think you know I'm not," he pointed out.

"Of course I do. But you're just cute to tease."

Rory sighed. "I guess now we know where River gets it from."

"You love it really," she asserted, violently cutting into the carrots.

Rory edged away from her slightly, suddenly _very_ aware that he was, in fact, no longer plastic and therefore much more susceptible to things of the sharp variety.

"Hey!" She said suddenly, eyes snapping up and locking on to him. "Where are you going? The sausages aren't going to cook themselves, you know!"

He gawped at her. "Sausages?"

She looked him up and down in amusement. Rory cleared his throat, hoping he wasn't blushing.

"Right, yes, sausages. You haven't put them on yet?"

"No, stupid, that's your job," she said, though with more affection than her words would suggest.

He obligingly got the sausages out of the meat drawer and opened the packet. "Aren't you supposed to do them _first_?" He asked rhetorically, not really thinking she would answer. "They take longer than carrots."

There was a brief silence.

"Yeah," Amy replied grudgingly, "but this is how I do things, and this is my kitchen, so just… put them on."

"Actually, Mrs Williams," Rory said, putting the sausages on and walking up to Amy, giving her a kiss that nearly made her cut her thumb off, "I think you'll find that this is also _my_ kitchen, now."

She grinned, pulling back from his kiss long enough to look him in the eyes. "Whatever you say, Centurion."

_ZAP_! "Oh my," River suddenly announced, causing Amy and Rory to jump apart with a shriek and a manly yell, respectively. "I can come back later, if that's more convenient." She winked at Rory.

Rory was pretty sure children weren't supposed to wink at their parents. River, however, seemed thoroughly unconcerned and simply pulled out a chair, sitting in it as if she had grown up in this very house. Which, sadly, she hadn't. At least, he didn't think so. Knowing the Doctor and River, she'd probably grown up in it before Amy lived there. Or after. Or maybe she had been invisible?

"Father dear, I think you had better sit down," River told him in amusement. "You look a bit dazed."

"Yeah," Rory muttered, doing as he was told. "Sorry."

"You were thinking about Melody, weren't you."

Rory nodded, knowing that River knew him well enough to tell when he was lying. And anyway, it hadn't really been a question.

"Is she safe?" Amy asked.

As always, River tensed slightly and gave them a tight smile. "She will be."

Amy immediately locked onto that and, like a dog with a bone, decided not to let it go. "What does that mean? _When_ will she be safe?"

"Spoilers."

"No, I'm sick of spoilers," Amy snapped, carrots now forgotten. "I want my daughter back."

There was that tense smile again. "You have her back."

Amy's expression suddenly softened and she looked down at the carrots in what appeared to be slight shame. "You know what I mean."

Rory got up and went over to her, putting his arms on her shoulders. She gave him a grateful smile.

"I know it's not easy," River said, "but you've got to trust the Doctor. You _know_ he'll find her."

"I just wish he'd let us help," Amy said. "I feel so helpless."

Rory gave her shoulders a squeeze. "It was too dangerous," he told her reasonably, though he knew she would never see it that way. "And you had just given birth. You weren't ready to hunt down a baby throughout time. He was trying to protect us."

"Well he shouldn't," she muttered. "I just want them safe, Rory, and not knowing where or even _when _they are…" she sighed, blinking once, the closest she would come to tears with River around, "it scares me."

"There is nothing to be scared of, Mother," River said soothingly, getting up from her chair to go and stand on Amy's other side, though her hands remained by her sides, unlike Rory's. "I'm here and we've seen the future Doctor."

Rory refrained from pointing out that, technically, that future Doctor had died. And they didn't know if that version had found Melody or not. They were trying to comfort Amy, not send her into hysterics.

"River's right." He squeezed Amy's shoulders. "And she kind of has the book to prove it."

Amy blew out what might have been a laugh under other circumstances. "Yeah. Sorry." She looked up at both of them in turn with a slight, but genuine, smile. "But thanks. Both of you."

River nodded and moved away again, this time to the window to stare outside at the sunset. The moment was officially over. In silence, Rory and Amy resumed making dinner, which turned out slightly burnt due to the emotional distraction, but no one really minded.

"God I love a burnt sausage," River said innocently, sometime later, before taking a sip of her red wine.

"River!" Rory admonished, without really knowing why. Amy looked over at him in surprise. "Well… it's just…" he floundered, not really having a reason and desperately trying to invent one, "it's dinner time."

Amy rolled her eyes at him. River smirked. "The Centurion awakens," she said, putting down her glass. "I was wondering when I'd get to meet him again."

"Don't you already know?" Rory countered.

"Spoilers," Amy supplied.

Rory sighed. "Right. What isn't."

"So what have you been up to, River, since we last saw you?" Amy asked.

"Well," River said, flickering her hair out the way so that she wouldn't get a mouthful with her meal, "the Doctor came to see me – from a different point in the timeline," she added, when Amy opened her mouth to ask after Melody, "and took me to Cardiff."

Rory and Amy exchanged a glance, eyebrows raised.

"Sorry, what?" Rory asked, even while Amy said, "All of time and space and he took you to _Cardiff_?"

River nodded as though this was perfectly normal. "He knows how I like to chase the monsters. Makes quite a change from being chased, don't you think? And Cardiff is the perfect place for that. Though for some reason," she added, almost to herself, "he won't take me to see Torchwood. Claims there are too many captains."

"Too many captains?" Rory asked, nonplussed.

"Don't worry, I have no idea what he means either."

"Right," Amy said, nodding blindly, "so was it fun? Chasing aliens in Cardiff, I mean?"

"Very," was the only reply they got.

_Vroop! Vroop! Vroop!_

Everyone promptly stopped eating and stared at each other. River frantically checked her book, brow creased, before stopping, clearly not wanting to turn the pages further.

"Damn," she muttered.

"What is it?" Amy asked.

"It hasn't happened to me yet," she said, "so I haven't written this down. Looks like we're going to have to play this one by ear."

"Hang on," Rory interrupted, confused, "how is it even possible for it – meeting the Doctor, I mean - to have already happened to you? If it had already happened, you wouldn't be here now, an earlier you would be. Or..." he trailed off, feeling the headache coming back. "Or… something."

"Let's just say that life with the Doctor is very confusing. And occasionally paradoxical," River said. "It doesn't hurt to check if something has already happened before."

"Okay…"

"Don't worry," River said, following Amy outside, "I don't think he understands either, whatever he says to the contrary."

Rory followed Amy into the control room, frowning when he saw the lights were on red. "Has he redecorated? Please don't tell me he's gone all disco. This isn't how disco is supposed to work!" He shouted out, so the Doctor would hear him.

No one answered. Ok, that was weird. Not even a "but disco is _cool_" drifted from under the engines.

And then suddenly the Doctor was there, but flickering and fading every few seconds, and standing completely still. That was unusual, and definitely a hologram. Or a projection. The Doctor never stood still.

"Emergency Protocol 7 has been completed," the Doctor announced, before disappearing again.

"Wait!" Amy shouted, looking around the room wildly. "Doctor?"

"What's Emergency Protocol 7?" Rory asked River, who had gone pale.

"And where's the Doctor?" Amy demanded.

"He's not here," she said, striding swiftly over to the console and pressing buttons almost as maniacally as the Doctor himself.

"So where is he then?" Amy asked.

"I don't know."

"How can you not know?" Amy countered. "You're his future!"

"Not always," River explained, still not looking at either of them. "Our timelines are all messed up. Until now I've been his future, yes, but since I wasn't with him when this happens - whatever this is – I don't know about it. And he hasn't told me, either."

"What?" Rory asked, feeling the familiar mask of confusion crawl onto his face and die there.

"It's hard to know with time travel," River explained. "This must be something from the Doctor's past – since it's already happened to him, and my future."

"But… that would make him ahead of you, this time?" Amy asked.

River nodded. "Could be. Like I said, our timelines are very mixed up and it's hard to know. For all I know we could actually be in synch at the moment. I've only been his future for most of our recent encounters. In my past, I was his past. He was my future."

"Er…" Rory contributed.

River seemed to be holding in a sigh. "It doesn't matter. What does matter is that the Doctor is in danger and I don't know why." She looked at them both. "I don't think I need to tell you both that that is not a good thing."

"So what do we do?" Amy asked, looking around the room for inspiration.

The console beeped and River ran over to the screen. "Oh no."

"Oh no?" Amy repeated. "Oh no, what? What is it?"

"The TARDIS recorded an unbelievable amount of energy. It stopped her during flight. That's when the Doctor disappeared."

The TARDIS hummed in agreement.

"What does that mean?" Rory asked. "Where did he disappear to?"

"It doesn't track," River said, frowning at the screen. "Whatever it was, it wasn't from this universe." The console bleeped again.

"What does that mean, not from this universe?" Amy asked, sounding more and more worried. "He's in another galaxy?"

"No," River said absently, staring at the screen. "Oh dear God."

"What?" This time, both Ponds – Williamses, he corrected himself – spoke in unison.

"The TARDIS is giving me records to a previous instance where something similar happened," she told them, "she's trying to help us find him. Tell me, has he ever mentioned Donna Noble?"

Rory shook his head, and saw Amy do the same.

"She was a friend of his. They met when she appeared on the TARDIS while she was in flight. She had been dosed with Huon particles, which were attracted to the TARDIS. She beamed in without even realising it."

"What's that got to do with the Doctor?" Amy asked warily.

River was still staring at the screen in disbelief. "The TARDIS is trying to tell us that a similar thing has happened to the Doctor, but in reverse." The TARDIS hummed. "He was taken out of her during flight."

"By those… thing-y particles?" Amy asked.

"No. This energy wasn't even from our universe and can't be tracked to anywhere in this universe. But," she said, "I recognise it."

She pressed a few buttons, an intense look of concentration on her face. "I've done a lot of research on the Time Lords," she explained, "trying to find out about the Doctor's people when I was younger, and I found an article claiming that Time Lords could not only travel through time and space and control it, they could also control the walls between universes. This energy is similar to a sample studied by the article. I thought it was a myth, a distortion of the truth and lack of evidence after the Time Lock, but now I'm not so sure. There's no other explanation."

"So what is it?" Amy asked. "What's happened?"

"I think someone or something from an alternate universe has pulled the Doctor through."

"But that's not so bad, is it?" Amy asked. "We have a TARDIS! We can just go through and get him back!"

River shook her head. "It's not that simple. The walls of reality were shut after the fall of the Time Lords. They're sealed off."

"But they can't be," Rory pointed out. "We see the Doctor die in this universe. It's a fixed point."

The TARDIS beeped again, and an image popped up onto the screen. A blond woman stared back at them, dressed in jeans and a jacket. River's jaw worked up and down.

"Oh you _are_ clever!" She told the TARDIS, sounding very relieved.

"Who's she?" Amy asked, staring at the screen in confusion.

"Rose Tyler," River said, an odd note to her voice but a smile on her face. "Suddenly I'm very glad I forced him to tell me about her – he can be very stubborn," she explained to them. "If I can use the basic ideas that she used for her Dimension Canon-"

"Dimension what?" Rory muttered, pretty sure his head was about to implode.

"-and alter it to account for the new state of the walls between universes, I can find a way to get through to him!"

"So you can bring him back?" Amy asked hopefully.

River shook her head. "No. That type of technology doesn't allow for pulling other people out of universes, only transporting the user into them. And I don't know of any that pulls anyone out of alternate realities in our universe. But," she added, grinning grimly, "I _can_ build something that lets me go through to find him."


	4. Building a Canon

**3. Building a Canon.**

Rory and Amy watched in confusion as River rummaged underneath the console, throwing things over her shoulder and making a general mess.

"What are you looking for?" Amy asked, raising her voice above the noise.

"A Corporeal Matter Transportation Device." River threw something else over her shoulder. "Stupid man. Who needs an automatic pancake flipper?"

Rory and Amy exchanged a look. "Sounds like him," Rory muttered.

"Pity he doesn't use it," Amy added. "I don't remember what the kitchen ceiling used to look like."

"Ok," River suddenly announced, standing up and brushing off her hands, "I think that's everything useful he has here." She put the contents into a box Rory had fetched from the house and joined them on the main level.

"So you can definitely get him back?"

"Nothing's ever definite when it comes to jumping across universes when technically they're closed off," River pointed out.

"You've done this before?" Rory asked, surprised.

"No. I just know that it wouldn't be easy. Now, Mother, Father, can I use your kitchen?"

"Of course," Amy agreed readily, though River was already out the door and in the garden, Rory and Amy scrabbling to keep up. "How long does it take to build, roughly?"

"I don't know, never built one before."

"At a guess?" Amy ventured.

"At least a fortnight." At their surprised looks, she said, "It's very complicated, even before the walls shut. Fortunately, I know someone who knew someone who did this before, so I have a head start. Of sorts."

She plonked the box down on their kitchen counter and began rifling through their cutlery draw, muttering under her breath. Finally she pulled out a fork, grabbed a device from the box, and began poking it with the fork. Rory stared at her, then at Amy, and then back again. They were so similar. He wondered if she'd inherited anything from him.

"You don't have to watch," River said, "this will take a while."

"Is there anything we can do?" Amy asked. "I don't know much about this stuff, but I can hand you things."

"Yeah, and I can… help you if your burn yourself?" Rory added, watching in disbelief as River ran over to grab the iron.

"Hmmm." River inspected the iron for a few moments. "Not hot enough."

Rory threw up his hands. "I think she's gone. We won't get anything out of her for days."

"Maybe you're right," Amy said, reluctantly, allowing Rory to lead her into the living room.

oOo

_Three days later…_

Rory groaned and flipped over drowsily, pressing his face into the pillow in an effort to block out the world around him. He had had a long shift – one of the most difficult ones he'd had in recent memory, with drunks, druggies and emergencies galore – and had only gone to bed three hours earlier. He hadn't even bothered to brush his teeth.

But something had woken him – a distant sort of crash, as though it had come from downstairs.

"Rory?"

And Amy was awake too. He definitely wasn't getting back to sleep now, not until they found out what that noise was.

"Rory?"

"Mrrrrrhhhm," he murmured unintelligibly. "Wassup?"

"There was a crash. I think someone's broken in."

"Ugh." He dragged himself upright and rubbed at his eyes. "It's at times like these I wish I still had a real sword."

Amy turned the light on, momentarily blinding Rory. "Don't worry, you've got me."

"I feel very reassured," he replied, getting to his feet, feeling much more awake now. "Ok, I'll go first."

He pushed open the bedroom door and walked carefully down the stairs, avoiding all the creaky floorboards, and felt his way into the kitchen. Finding the kitchen door, he pushed it the rest of the way open to find the light already on and the kitchen in complete disarray. Pans littered the floor and there was flour all over the table, not to mention the usual strange gadgets littering the counters. And in the middle of it all was River, her hair even bushier than usual. She was currently using a magnifying glass to screw bolts into the strange contraption that she was building.

"River?"

River whirled around wildly. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"What happened?" Rory asked, beckoning Amy into the room behind him. "We heard crashing."

"Oh, that," River said, going back to her work. "I had to make a quick jump to the future to get some parts, and when I came back I got the coordinates a bit wrong. Knocked over a stack of pans."

"Why was there a stack of pans?" Amy asked, staring in disbelief at the room. "And is that _flour_?"

"It was in one of the pans," River said by way of explanation.

Amy knelt down and picked up a pan. "It's melted."

"An experiment. I was trying to build a Doctor Radar. I thought I could melt the pan into a satellite dish shape." Her contraption let loose sparks. "I'll buy you another."

Amy put the pan down, looking very confused but seemingly deciding to just go with whatever River suggested. Rory looked over River's shoulder, squinting at what seemed to be a miniature space ship with a button on the top.

"I know it doesn't look quite right," River defended, immediately sensing his thoughts, "but I've not had as much time to perfect it as I would have liked."

"I thought you said it would take two weeks?"

"I did," River said. "I've also been working on it during my jumps to the future."

"When have you been jumping to the future?" Amy asked, forgetting the pans. "You've been here the whole time."

"I snuck off when you were sleeping. You both sleep a lot. And heavily. Except for tonight it would seem."

"So how long has it been for you?" Amy persisted.

"About two weeks," River answered.

"And have you slept?" Rory asked, peering at her face, noticing the dark smudges under her eyes.

"I haven't had time! I don't know where or when the Doctor is, and every moment I waste here building this canon means he could be in bigger danger!"

"Is that why you've been jumping into the future?" Amy asked, even as Rory visually scanned their daughter for any signs of illness.

River nodded, still prodding at the spaceship-thing. "I thought minimising my time here would help. Since I'm trying the jump from here, the less time I spend here the better for when I go into parallel time streams. We never know if we'll find him in one that runs at a faster pace."

"I think you should get some sleep," Rory suggested, hearing a hysterical note beginning to creep into her voice. "You'll make yourself ill."

"I've got to finish this!"

"But you won't if you're too tired to think straight," Rory reasoned. "And the last thing we want is you splicing yourself into atoms trying to get him back."

River sighed, putting her tools down. "You're right, of course. I keep forgetting that I'm part human too."

"Ok," Rory agreed, "we have a spare room upstairs."

River shook her head. "It's alright, I'll go into the future, then I'll waste less time here and get more rest at the same time."

"Where?" Amy asked. "Here?"

River shook her head. "Too much chance of ruining the timelines. No, I'll go to Stormcage for the night. At least I know it's completely quiet there," she said, sounding more like her old self. "Not too many midnight parties there, unfortunately."

"Just make sure you do sleep," Amy admonished. "No chasing aliens for you, young lady."

River smiled, already looking slightly less tense, if tired. "I'll be back before you know it."

And she disappeared.

There was a beat of silence, before Rory said, "We will find him."

Amy nodded. "I know." She sighed, picking up the pans again. "This was a wedding present from my Aunt."

Rory snorted. "She didn't like you very much, did she? What kind of pan melts that easily?"

Amy laughed and put it in the bin. "It's not like I ever used it."

Rory moved over to the Dimension Canon and stared at it. "I wish I knew if it was supposed to look like this. It looks like one of those UFOs you see in those hoax pictures."

"The more spacey, the more likely it is to work," Amy reasoned. "At least it doesn't look like… I don't know, an egg timer."

Rory nodded. "That's a good poi – ARGH!" River had appeared right in front of him, almost making him fall over backwards in shock. "River!"

"Oops."

"What happens if you set the coordinates for where someone else is standing?" Amy asked, suddenly.

River shrugged. "Something terrible I expect. I haven't had the chance to find out yet."

"And please don't," Rory interjected, forcing air back into his lungs. "I've not existed enough times in my life already."

Amy looked at River. "You look better."

River nodded. "I slept for two days. That would tend to fix the problem."

Rory gaped. "Is that a Time Lord thing? Is that how the Doctor never gets tired?"

River smirked. "No, Dad, it's very much an exhausted human thing. But while I was sleeping I had a chance to think – that _is_ a Time Lord thing, by the way - and I've managed to solve a problem I've been having. I should be able to test the Dimension Canon later today."

"What, just like that?" Amy asked.

"Well, two weeks in my timeline, three days in yours," River reminded her. "But yes, it is faster than I'd hoped. Now," she added, "go back to bed. Honestly, it's 3 in the morning! You two are such a bad example."

And with that she unceremoniously pushed them both from the room and shut the door behind them with a resolute slam.

Rory sighed. "I don't think I'll be able to get back to sleep after all that. What if a future version of River lands in our room? Remember when the Doctor-"

"Yes," Amy said, "and I don't think he _meant_ to land the TARDIS in our bed at _quite_ that moment. Maybe we should just forget about that one."

"Yeah," Rory agreed, "bit embarrassing. Maybe we could get a lock?"

Amy gave him an 'are you stupid' look. "How would that help?"

Rory thought about it for a moment. "Oh. Right."


	5. Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

**4. Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition.**

The Doctor lay panting on the floor, feeling as though he had been turned inside out and then put back together again. He had completely lost track of time since Voldemort had first decided that verbal questioning had been getting him nowhere. It could have been seconds, minutes or hours, and he had no idea. And that thought worried him perhaps as much as his current situation.

Voldemort was still standing in front of him, wand lowered now, and a thoroughly dissatisfied look on his face. Bellatrix was looking at him with slightly sadistic curiosity. Perhaps it really had been hours, then.

"My Lord," Bellatrix muttered in a voice shaking with repressed emotion, sounding like a child asking for a particularly luxurious present, "perhaps, if I were to have a go…?"

Voldemort's nostrils flared. "I think not, Bellatrix. The Cruciatus Curse will not work on him."

"I know many other forms of persuasion, my Lord," Bellatrix said, getting strangely close to pleading.

Voldemort finally turned to look at her. "No. I believe I have a better solution." He turned back to the Doctor. "One that is much more likely to work on this Gallifreyan."

The Doctor gaped. "How?" He coughed when his dried out throat got stuck on the words. "How do you even _know_ that?"

"I told you, Doctor," Voldemort hissed impatiently, "that I had some followers research you."

"And where are these followers?" The Doctor asked, feeling his voice getting stronger. He lifted himself up so that he was kneeling rather than lying on the floor. "Dead, I assume?"

"Enough. _Legilimens_!"

_He was in the clearing again, caged like an animal, and staring back at him were what he now knew to be characters from Harry Potter – _

_ He read the last page and, to his surprise, saw a tear dropping down onto the very last word of book 7 – _

_ Wait till you read book 7! Oh, I cried!_

_ William Shakespeare standing on a stage beneath a swirling purple cloud of Carrionites flying through the air, looking desperately to the Doctor, pleading with him to find the words. But he had nothing, he couldn't think of anything – for once, not a single word came to his mind, and he stood there with his mouth hanging open, wishing desperately for his brain to work, to just _work_, then looking to Martha, who immediately yelled "Expelliarmus!" and everything would be saved…_

_ Martha, good old Martha, studying to be a Doctor, hadn't even heard of magic, and she had sent them all back with just one word. Good old Martha. Good old JK!_

_ JK Rowling, author. A picture of JK Rowling smiling while holding up the very latest book. _

_ "The Angels should be gone now," he told the terrified monk, "just make sure you don't buy anymore, just in case." He put his hands into his pockets and walked off, marvelling at a world without technology as he went. Just wait a few hundred years, and this place would be teaming with cars… _

_ But that had been a few regenerations ago, now. _

The Doctor struggled and fought, the initial surprise of a human managing to break into his mind being chased away by the realisation that this human was a very real threat, and should not be allowed to see anything that the Doctor knew, not if he wanted Earth to remain in one piece. But he was weakened from the curses and his mind's responses were sluggish, making it hard for him to push against the unfamiliar presence.

_It hurt, Rassilon how it hurt – he thought his hearts would burst, that his arms would pop out of his sockets, and any minute now, he would be a new man…_

_ "Where are my shoes?"_

_ "…this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin." "What do you mean, 'wearing a bit thin'?"_

The only thing he could do was keep him away from any important information, until he got enough strength for one final push…

_"What do you think of my new face, by the way?"_

_ "Oh, never mind about the clothes, they're easily changed. What about me?"_

And, feeling a sudden burst of irritation that no new information was forthcoming (new information?) the Doctor gave an almighty mental shove and found himself, rather abruptly, in Voldemort's mind.

_He really hoped this would be useful in the long run and that he wasn't just cursing with the wrong wand, because so far he was finding this Muggle show completely unbearable. It wasn't even in colour. "Let me get this straight. A thing that looks like a police box standing in a junk yard – it can move anywhere in time and space?" _

_ Davros, sitting in his life support machine, "Are you threatening me? If so it is most unwise."_

_ He had a body, now, and servants to do his bidding. Fortunately, Wormtail had not failed him this time. He had gone to a Muggle library and found him a book – from the science section, it would seem, going by its title – going into detail on the possibilities of alternate dimensions. "It is fairly certain that they exist," he read, in the introduction. "In fact, it is believed that there are eleven. However, this book aims to-"_

Before the Doctor could even hope to read any further he found that Voldemort's mind was suddenly off-limits, and that the man himself was standing before him looking livid. Not one to give up, he tried again: "_Legilimens_!"

This time, the Doctor trapped Voldemort in a maze in the very forefront of his mind, showing no information at all, and watched with bated breath as Voldemort crashed through it, trying to rip it to pieces. The Doctor simply made the destroyed pieces pop back into place, and Voldemort finally withdrew, leaving a mental trail of anger and frustration in his wake, as well as a whopping headache.

The Doctor groaned, finding himself on the floor once more, his hands pressed into his throbbing in his temples. Dimly, he could hear Voldemort cursing and pacing, occasionally stopping to ponder his captive lying on the ground. Finally, the pounding in his head subsided enough for the Doctor to focus on the real world around him.

"Very well, Bellatrix, you may have your way with him. However," he added, his voice becoming more threatening, "you are not to kill him or mortally wound him. If he appears to be willing to share any information, call me immediately." And with that, Voldemort swooped out of the room.

"Too busy to do it himself, is he?" The Doctor heard someone ask. Who would ask such a stupid thing? He looked around the cell. "Ah," he said aloud, "that was me. Right."

Bellatrix stared at him.

The Doctor sighed. "Do you really want to do this?" he asked wearily, knowing it was futile and yet owing it to himself to try. "You could be so much better than this."

Bellatrix cackled. "No, I want to do it very much. _Crucio_!"

oOo

Sometime later the Doctor stirred, then jerked awake. And immediately wished he hadn't. The motion jarred his exhausted and sore body, making him feel like he had gone several rounds with a train and lost. And his head. He groaned. Don't even mention his head. It felt too heavy and painful to even belong to him anymore. He was positively sure that it had been sat on by an elephant. Or even turned into an elephant. He wasn't quite sure of anything by this point.

He dragged himself into a sitting position and squeezed his eyes shut, one arm clamped around his nauseous stomach, willing it to stop flipping. He swallowed furiously, desperately, and willed himself to ride it out.

_He constructed a beach in his mind: palm trees, swinging hammocks, a blue, blue sea – the bluest he had ever seen – and a nice, healthy green sky. He took a running jump at his hammock and landed triumphantly in it, relishing in the relaxing swinging movement from his momentum. He crossed his arms behind his head and lay back for a moment, staring up at the alien birds in the sky. He could name them all, every single one. _

He opened his eyes to find that the nausea had receded to a bearable level along with the aching in his joints and head. Voldemort and Bellatrix were good at what they did – they knew how to inflict a world of pain without the smallest scar, knowing that keeping the captive alive, without a single hint of escape by dying from hideous injuries, was the best way to break them. And he hated that he knew why they did it that way.

All those lives lost, all those lives that he had taken, all the worlds that he had burned…

He pulled himself to his feet and walked over to the door. Force field. No… not force field. _Magical, remember?_

Right, so what was it, then? Protection Charm? He pinched the bridge of his nose. He was too tired to remember what it was, and that worried him. How long had he been here? He couldn't lose track, it would mean that they were winning, that he was breaking. An infallible sense of time was both pride and necessity for a Time Lord, and losing it was a sign of… well. Not being all there, he supposed. Like a human who talked to themselves aloud in a public place.

Ok, so he had been here… He screwed his eyes up and worked backwards, playing the events that he could remember through his mind as though watching a film on rewind. He span around and stared at the window, counting on his fingers at he stared at his small patch of sky, and nodded.

"Five days, now. That's how long you've been here."

_Great_, his brain replied. _Remember what you just said about a human talking aloud to themselves?_

"Yeah, but in fairness I'm not human _and_ I'm not in a public place."

_And how do you know_? _They might have bugged the room_.

He thought about that for a moment, then hobbled around the room, searching for anything out of the ordinary. He reached inside his pocket, intending to find the screwdriver and analyse the results of scanning the cell, but it wasn't there. He quickly patted himself down. Nope, ok, not there. They must have finally taken it.

He tutted at the door. "You lot really are sloppy, you know! You don't leave a man with his screwdriver!"

_Silencing Spells?_

Oh, right. There had been silencing spells on the cell that Bellatrix had shown him when he'd first arrived here. Well, that was wonderful. He could be screaming and dying in here, being attacked by a giant –

_A giant?_

Only thing I could think of that could break in – and no one would know!

_They also wouldn't care_.

Yes, well, there was that as well.

_You're very Muggle, aren't you?_

He span around, at that, an expression of utter confusion plastered on his face. How _dare_ he insult himself! "Sorry, what?"

_Your escape plan. It's too Muggle. In case you haven't noticed, you're not in a Muggle prison._

Yes, I had noticed, thanks. I'm pretty sure a Muggle prison of this era would at least give me decent facilities and food. And water, come to think of it. I am a bit parched…

_Shut up and listen to me_, his angry inner voice commanded.

The Doctor raised his hands. Alright, calm.

_Think magic. _

Yes, magic. That thing they've been torturing me with. Yes, you know, I _had_ almost forgotten about that, but I'm glad one of us remembers. Well, part of _me_ remembers, since you're not even a real voice, you stupid inner monologue.

Silence filled the cell for a few moments as the Doctor processed what he had just said to himself. So he had insulted himself a few times, but that was hardly different. Giving advice to himself without even knowing what he was going to say before he was going to say it, however, _was_ different. And it was very interesting. He was having trouble, however, working out what it was that he had meant, given that it was hard to think straight all cooped up and tortured.

_You've done it before_.

Oh, so you're listening now, are you?

_Think magic? Why do I even have to explain this? _

Of course! He hit himself on the forehead, and promptly wished he hadn't. Magic! They used magic, and he hadn't seen a single Muggle since arriving here – though in fairness not many Muggles were likely to wander through his cell. Which meant that this was definitely real and not a hallucination brought on by too many bananas. And he had to do something about it, and fast.

He'd read the books and seen the films, so he knew the correct words and movements, and the principle seemed the same. Wand plus words and waving equals magic. He didn't have a wand, unfortunately, but he remembered reading about wandless magic. It was for very powerful and well-practiced wizards, yes, but what choice did he have?

The Doctor stood on the opposite side of his cell and breathed in and out slowly, as though he were about to run a race. He stretched his arms. He wiggled his fingers. He cleared his throat, ignoring the pain of a throat that had been screaming for hours. He lifted his hands and stood with his legs slightly bent –

_A ridiculous image from a film he'd seen once, Bruce Almighty, popped into his mind. Bruce was standing on a table, in much the same position as the Doctor was in now, commanding his ex to love him. _

-And curled his fingers slightly inwards. "_Accio bucket_!" he shouted at the top of his voice, hoping that yelling would be an appropriate substitute for a missing wand.

Apparently it wasn't, because the bucket had stubbornly not moved a single inch.

"_Lumos?_"

Nothing. Ok, but that might have been because he had sounded more inquisitive than authoritative. He tried again, but in a slightly stronger voice. Still nothing.

_What did you expect, fire springing up from your fingertips?_

Alright, there's no need to gloat. And why are you gloating, anyway? You're _me_. If I can't do it, neither can you, and that means you're just as stuck as I am.

_Just shut up and keep trying. But try the _useful_ ones._

oOo

**Author's Note: **As always thanks to those of you who are reading this story, and even more thanks to those who are reviewing - they help keep me motivated :) Remember, if there's something you see that doesn't add up or if you think there is a section (or entire thing) that could be improved upon, please let me know so that I can make the next chapter better than the last. :)


	6. A Stitch in Time

**Author's Note:**Hello everyone! I hope you had a good Christmas and are looking forward to the new year to come! Did you all see the Christmas special? I think I was almost in floods when The Doctor regenerated :p Anyway, sorry this chapter has taken such a long time in coming - I was caught in the crazy English weather on the way home so was unable to get to a computer for a bit. But now that it's all over, I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

**5. A Stitch in Time.**

Rory pushed open the front door and was immediately pounced on by Amy, her red hair tickling his nose and threatening to make him sneeze. She was shaking, almost sobbing and yet sounded like she was also trying not to laugh. And she was clutching him so hard that it was becoming almost impossible to breathe.

"What, what is it? What's happened?"

Amy slapped his chest softly, pulling back. Her voice sounded hoarse. "Nothing. Nothing's happened. But something _might_ happen."

"What?"

Amy closed the door behind him, and it was only then that Rory realised that he had forgotten to do so. "Well, you know how River said she had the Dimension Canon ready?"

"That was a week ago."

Rory found himself lead into the living room, coming face to face with a River who was raising a rueful eyebrow at him, obviously having overheard his last remark.

"I miscalculated," she said.

Rory eyed the device on the coffee table. It was small and round, like a giant button, and had a miniature radar sticking out of the side. A silver chain turned it into a necklace for convenient use.

"Is it finished?" He asked, in disbelief. "What happened to the UFO look?"

"Like I said," River replied, ruefully, "miscalculation. Turns out the Doctor is rather more sketchy on details than even I realised."

"But it works?" Rory asked. "It'll get you to the Doctor?"

"That's what she doesn't know yet," Amy said.

"I'm going to test it," River agreed. "Today." She checked her watch. "In five minutes, in fact."

Rory squinted at her. "Why in five minutes?"

"I have to give it time to charge first," River replied, as if it was obvious. She leaned over to the sofa and picked up a backpack, heaving it onto her shoulders with more effort than seemed necessary for such a small bag. "Bigger on the inside," she explained. "Unfortunately the Time Lords never found a way to make it lighter on the inside, as well."

"Is it really practical to take into battle?" Rory asked. Beside him, he saw Amy tense at the word "battle", though they both knew it was likely that the Doctor had been taken to one.

"Father, stop worrying."

The Dimension Cannon beeped, and River picked it up.

"Can we come with you?" Amy blurted.

River looked up, surprised. "What?"

"We want to come with you," Amy said. "Can we?"

"I'm afraid it can't carry several people."

Rory stared at her. "Then how are you going to get the Doctor back?" he pointed out.

River remained silent for a few moments, clearly caught out. "It's far too dangerous. I could be scattered into atoms."

Rory and Amy shared a silent look. Rory saw Amy's intense expression and knew immediately what their decision was going to be.

"We don't care," Rory summarised, turning back to River, "because you're our daughter."

"And we want you safe," Amy added. "Now more than ever."

River nodded. "I thought you might say that." She looked at them both seriously, looking like she hated to have to say her next words. "So I took the time to think of a good counter-argument."

She pressed the button and disappeared.

Rory stood still in shock, staring at the spot of carpet where his daughter had once been. Amy screamed in frustration and flung herself at the empty space, shouting River's name over and over. Tears were streaming down her face as she finally gave in and sank onto the sofa, hand covering her mouth as she tried desperately to regain control of herself. Rory tried to move over to her, to comfort her, he really did. But he found that he was stuck.

There was a slight scorch mark on the carpet where River had been.

oOo

River landed roughly on a hard surface that revealed itself to be, on closer inspection, a pavement. She stood up and looked around, her eyes widening. She was in London, present day London, but there were zeppelins in the sky. Yet no one was screaming, no one was taking photos or even asking what was going on. It was as if it was common place. She walked over to a bin and peered inside. Seeing what she wanted, she fished out a paper. 2006.

So… she considered the possibilities. She had either jumped into a time stream that was moving at a slower rate than the one she had just left, the calendar worked differently, or she had gone back in time _and_ across universes.

Before she could even think "I hope the Doctor is here after all", she watched the TARDIS literally plummet from the sky and hurtle into the ground with an almighty crash, sending passers-by scrambling to get out the way.

_Well, that was easier than expected. Or it would be, if the missing Doctor had gone missing in the TARDIS_.

River took the newspaper over to a nearby bench and sat down, pretending to read, though in actuality watching over the top of the paper as three people exited the TARDIS. She recognised two of them: Rose and the Tenth Doctor. The TARDIS had shown them when she had (politely) asked to see them. Purely out of curiosity, of course.

It wasn't because the Doctor had mentioned their adventures and her younger self had thought she had had competition. Not at all.

The third one though, she didn't recognise. He was of medium height, black, wearing a jacket and jeans, and seemed quite glad to be where they were. The Doctor, meanwhile, was looking up at the sky in shock.

She was just close enough to eavesdrop in their conversation which, she thought to herself, she might as well do now that she was here and waiting for the Dimension Canon to recharge. And in any case, she was hardly able to move and reveal herself, just in case it was a version of him that had met her. The Doctor had accidentally let it slip that she had met her before his newest regeneration, though he had managed to be rather secretive about the particulars.

"So this is London?" The Doctor asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets and joining the other two.

"Yep," the man replied, still staring at the newspaper.

"Your city."

"That's the one."

The Doctor moved to stand in front of him. "Just as you left it."

"Bang on."

The Doctor looked pointedly up at the sky. "And that includes the zeppelins?"

Despite the circumstances, River could not help but smile. He was quite the cheeky one in this regeneration, it would seem.

"What the hell?"

"That's _beautiful_," Rose said. River could immediately see why he had liked her so much.

"Ok," the man said, clutching at straws, "so it's London with a big international zeppelin festival."

River winced, unable to tell if he was joking or serious. The Doctor, for his part, let it slide and instead jumped straight to an explanation. "This is not your world."

Too right it wasn't. For one thing, it smelt wrong. River peered at the TARDIS, wondering why they had crash landed there, and noticed that the light on the top was off. She had completely lost power. River raised an eyebrow. Quite the pickle, though one she knew the Doctor would get himself out of.

"But," the man said slowly, following the Doctor as he walked down the street, "if the date's the same, it's parallel, right?"

They were getting further and further out of earshot now, and facing the wrong direction, staring at something away from her. Reluctantly abandoning the idea of stalking this interesting new (though technically old) incarnation of the Doctor as he worked out how to get them all back home (that was always such fun), River put down her newspaper and checked to see if the Dimension Canon was charged.

It was. She quickly glanced in the direction of the group to verify they weren't looking – even on a parallel world this technology would be suspicious – and pressed the button. The shocked expression of a man walking his dog faded in front of her eyes and was replaced with her parents' living room.

The room was empty and the house sounded as though no one was home, so River sat down on the sofa and made herself at home. She would need to modify the Doctor Detector, as she had dubbed it, so that it took her to the correct regeneration, now that she knew that the Doctor had already travelled across universes. She sighed, unable to stop herself from thinking that this would have been a lot simpler if the Doctor had simply _told_ her that he had done this before.

Though, she conceded, the excursion that she had just witnessed seemed to have been entirely accidental and left the TARDIS dangerously low on power. Anyway, even if he had told her how he had managed to get there, in a TARDIS, she would have deliberately used a different method to get to him this time. She didn't like the fact that whoever had taken him had managed to get into the TARDIS to do so. It wouldn't do to then take said TARDIS into the battle zone, so to speak. She hated to think what someone that determined and that powerful could do with such a ship. At least this way only one person could get through.

Unless they modified it, which was a very real possibility that she did not really want to think about.

She ran the possibilities for improving the Doctor Detector through in her mind, determining that she would need some of this regeneration's DNA for a more accurate result. She smiled to herself. This should be fun.

Stowing the Dimension Canon in her bigger-on-the-inside backpack, River keyed in some coordinates in the vortex manipulator.

She reappeared on Earth during her parents' wedding. She was technically already here, so she would have to avoid being seen by anyone who knew her. Luckily, she had appeared in the garden while everyone was still inside dancing. Using her memories of who had been where, River managed to avoid her parents and sneak up on the Doctor while he was dancing.

He ran across the dance floor, arms stuck rod straight in the air, wiggling his head about like a nodding dog and his knees bending more and more the further he went, looking as though he were walking down invisible stairs. River observed with amusement, hiding between a small crowd of relatives.

_Ah, the birth of his famous Drunken Giraffe. Always a treat to watch_. _Quite possibly the only thing in existence more embarrassing than his Feztish._

If she didn't know better, she would say that he was drunk if she went solely off his dancing skills, and Amy seemed to agree with her – she was laughing so hard she was almost falling over. River waited until the Doctor tried to do break dancing – cheered on by a truly large number of children – to sneak up on him. She knew that he wouldn't be able to see her through that huge mop of hair of his, as it was currently falling over his eyes as he attempted – without much success, she noted – to do a handstand.

She deftly plucked out a hair and ducked behind a surly looking teenager before moving on to hide behind a group of tipsy looking adults arguing about which type of cheese smelt the worst.

"Ok, who did that?" She heard the Doctor shouting over the music. "I know my hair is cool, but you don't have to steal it! _Really_, children today, I don't know…"

River slipped back out into the garden, avoiding someone on a smoking break, and hid behind a bush. Taking out her vortex manipulator, she keyed in coordinates and disappeared again as quickly as she could.

Her parents' house flashed back into view, though this time both Rory and Amy were in the living room when she materialised, gracefully, in front of the television that they were currently watching. They both stared at her, mouths agape.

"Mum, Dad, I'm home," she announced rather pointlessly, but she felt their expressions warranted some sort of dramatic line. "Please don't get up."

"River?" Amy asked, her voice almost breaking. "Is that really you?"

River sat down in the armchair across from them. "Yes, of course it's me." When both parents continued to stare at her, she frowned. "Why?"

"You've been gone for weeks!" Amy finally said, raising her voice.

"Oh dear. Curfew is definitely broken," River muttered.

"It's not funny," Rory said, some of the Centurion rearing his head again. "We thought you'd died. You said you could be blasted into atoms, and then you just _disappeared_!"

Amy nodded. "Don't you _ever_ do that to us again!" She agreed, pointing at a small scorch mark on the floor where River had disappeared.

"What's the date?"

"That's it?" Amy asked incredulously. "We haven't seen you for weeks and you ask the date?"

River nodded. "Yes, sorry." She gestured to the vortex manipulator. "I was just at your wedding and I had to disappear quite quickly – I must have mixed up a few numbers."

"Oh," Rory said in a deceptively calm voice. "A few numbers."

River sighed. "It makes quite a difference. And I'm sorry, I really am, but the more time we spend here discussing where I've been and how long I've been away the longer it takes to get to the Doctor."

"You didn't see him?" Amy asked anxiously.

River shook her head. "No. Well, yes. But it was the wrong incarnation. So I went to your wedding and stole some of his hair while he was breakdancing." She held up the few strands she had pulled out as if to prove her point. "I need it to modify the Doctor Detector."

Rory nodded, the first to calm down of the two of them, but he still seemed a bit off. "So what now?"

"I modify it. But from the sounds of it, I need to be quick, if I've been gone for a few weeks. I'll need to use the TARDIS," she added, leaving the question for permission hanging in the air.

Amy nodded. "I'm sorry, River. I know you're a time traveller and that things like this will happen," she said, gesturing to the scorch mark, "but you gave us quite a scare."

River nodded. "I understand. And I'm sorry, Mother."

Rory managed a small smile, getting up to give her a hug, Amy following suite. "We're just glad you're actually safe and not floating around in our living room." He leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, "Amy wouldn't let me open the window for two weeks after you left, in case you disappeared. I probably shouldn't have told her that we would have been breathing you anyway."

River pursed her lips. "Definitely not the best move, no." Amy just nodded, her eyes beginning to tear up. River decided to beat a tactful retreat. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the TARDIS playing with the Doctor's hair."


	7. Truth Will Out

**6. Truth Will Out.**

The Doctor sat in the corner of his cell and stared out the window, counting the stars that he could see through the small square. He could name all of them. Had been to all of them, in fact. If he closed his eyes, he could see them in his mind's eye, each of them different to the last, every one unique. And around those stars whole civilisations had been built, fought and, in some cases, died out. Some had died in the Time War, and he mourned every single one of them.

They had been amazing, and perhaps that was why they had perished. They had been peaceful and entirely too faithful in the good of the Time Lords. They had trusted that, having treaties with the Time Lords and being so far away from Gallifrey itself and the conflict, they would be left out of the war entirely. They had thought that they were protected by distance and diplomacy. But they hadn't thought of the Daleks, their ruthlessness, and what Rassilon – in many ways just as ruthless – would do to stop them. And their faith had gone up in flames.

The Doctor hung his head, the stars slipping out of his sight. It could have reached Earth. In the last days in particular it had been so far spread across the galaxy that the Time Lords, a race once previously loved and in some cases worshipped, had become almost as hated as the Daleks themselves.

He still remembered the pilot that he had failed to save. She had taken one look at his TARDIS and condemned herself to death, shutting herself off from him. And he had died with her, died in a futile effort to save her. Or perhaps he had died trying to escape. Because that was what the Time War had done to so many. So many had died rather than face what they had known was coming.

And through the curse of modern technology, so many of them had been brought back.

For 6 days, the only thing that he had had to occupy his time was his mind and that window. And those two things combined were proving to be more devastating even than the torture he had suffered the previous day. Given the time and effort, he could break himself.

Perhaps that was how the Valeyard had been created. He had often wondered about that. When could he possibly get so bad that he would try to get himself killed? He sighed, his gaze drifting back to the stars through the hole in the wall. Then again, it wasn't so difficult to believe.

A sudden clanging announced the opening of the door, and the Doctor jumped to his feet, turning to face whoever it was who had been sent to attack him this time. To his surprise, a small loaf of bread and a cup of water were floated through the door, landing gently on the floor. The Doctor ran to the door, intending to see if he could catch a glimpse of whoever had decided to feed him at last, but it was shut in his face and the force field snapped up, sending him sprawling once more onto the hard floor.

The Doctor panted, winded, and pulled himself into a sitting position. He stared at the food and water lying on the cell floor. He inched closer and picked up the loaf of bread. Stale and dirty from being on the floor, but edible. He sniffed the water. It smelled strange, but was clear.

He pondered the problem for a few minutes, trying to ignore his rumbling stomach and dry bone mouth. If he had been human, he would be dead by now – he had had nothing to drink since before he had even arrived in this universe – and they surely knew that, or they would have given him water sooner. His gaze was drawn to the bucket in the corner, and he winced. Perhaps not.

They clearly didn't care about keeping him healthy, but they cared about keeping him alive. Keeping him alive gave them more chance of discovering his secrets. But that didn't mean they wouldn't poison his food just for some extra entertainment. They certainly seemed the sort. But he could hardly leave what they had given him – his dehydration was reaching dangerous points, even for a Time Lord, and he didn't know when someone would next come. For all he knew, this would be all he would receive for the next six days.

He broke the bread in half and peered inside it. Good, no creepy-crawly things, no spider webs, no obviously poisonous poison-like substance…

_What would you know? You can't sonic it, you can't use magic to analyse it. _

Alright then, you just watch.

The Doctor sniffed the bread. It smelled stale. He darted his tongue out and licked a small portion of the inside. He rolled the taste around in his mouth for a moment, like a diner experimenting with a fine wine, then winced. He licked the outside and did the same thing. But it didn't taste like there was anything lethal in it, so he took a bite.

_Oh, you're so stupid. _

What am I supposed to do, starve?

_It would mean they wouldn't get information from you. _

Yeah, and if they noticed me starving to death they'd probably force feed me cockroaches or snakes or something. And besides, I'm _the Doctor_, my death is a fixed point in time. I can't die here.

The other voice remained quiet, and the Doctor nodded triumphantly. "Ha, got you. Doctor 1, Doctor 0."

And to celebrate, he took another bite. And, finding himself gradually getting used to the taste and being driven more and more by his increasingly demanding stomach, he finished the loaf. He sat there for a moment, wondering whether he should be yelling at himself for not rationing it or revelling in the feeling of a full stomach.

Settling on neither, he scooched over to the water, which he had left where it had been left originally, and picked up the cup. He warily sniffed it. Again, that strange smell.

_Veritaserum?_

He hoped not. He stared at the water, which grew and grew until in his mind's eye it was practically a pool, glittering away at the centre of a desert. He was so thirsty, especially after the bread, and if he didn't do something about it soon, he would be in trouble.

"Fingers crossed," he muttered to himself, and took a sip.

He deliberately moved to the other side of the room, then, and started talking to himself, looking for any effects that could come from a spiked drink. He prattled on about anything and everything under the sun and threw in quite a few whoppers every now and then – every time with success.

When half an hour had passed, he moved back over to the cup and drank slowly, eyes closed, feeling like a man dying in the desert taking a shower.

oOo

Ten minutes later, the Doctor's theory was proven correct as his door was flung open once more. In strode Voldemort, Bellatrix, and someone the Doctor had not yet seen. He was tall, gaunt and had greasy hair.

Greasy hair, hooked nose…

"Snape," he muttered to himself. "Good old Severus Snape."

Fortunately this was masked by Voldemort slamming the door shut and walking over to the Doctor. He spotted the cup lying on the floor and smirked slightly. "You are sure that the correct dosage was given, Severus?"

Snape, who had remained by the door with Bellatrix, inclined his head. "I believe so, my Lord. However, I feel it necessary to point out that he is rather a… peculiar case."

Voldemort did not reply to that, but instead drew his wand, though he let it hang by his side.

_Ohhhh, is this Good Cop, Bad Cop? Or Good Wizard, Bad Wizard?_

I thought you were supposed to be the negative, sarcastic one?

_I am. _

Then shut up, you're drunk.

"How do you know of us?" Voldemort asked.

"Wow," the Doctor said, spying a vial in Snape's hands and thinking on his feet. He had a feeling that it was more Veritaserum, in case of emergencies. "You really are like a dog with a bone, aren't you? Or do you not know that phrase? I suppose you wouldn't, being a _high and mighty wizard_, and all that, but who knows. You might have broadened your horizons a little. You seem quite good at that." He paused, smiling. "Aren't you going to ask me my name? I just _love_ it when people say 'Doctor Who'. But then again you probably don't understand that. I suppose very few people ever say 'Voldemort who'-"

Bellatrix hissed and whipped out her wand, and Snape's entire face became, if possible, more of a wooden mask. Voldemort, for his part, simply raised a hand, signalling for his followers to remain calm.

"- and if they do," he finished, triumphant, "they probably don't live for very long afterwards, so your enjoyment of it would be rather short-lived."

There was a brief pause.

"Severus," Voldemort said.

Snape obediently moved over to the Doctor, unstopping the vial as he went. The Doctor forced himself to remain still on the floor, knowing that a side-effect of Veritaserum was the inability to move. Snape pried his mouth open and the Doctor felt several more drops slide down his throat. He gulped convulsively.

_Your first performance could have been better_.

What? I _did_ tell him the truth. It's not my fault he didn't get it.

Leaving the Doctor's mouth open, Snape stood and retreated back to his place by the door. The Doctor felt the potion trying to gain control of his senses and he fought furiously, only just managing to beat it back and keep control of his faculties, though he lost awareness of most of his body. He was so glad that he wasn't human, right now. Fortunately, the potion had had enough effect that the Doctor no longer had to fake the limbs that wouldn't respond and the slightly vacant expression.

"How do you know of us?" Voldemort asked once more.

"The same way everyone else in my universe does," the Doctor said in a suitably vague tone. He hoped he wasn't dribbling. That would be embarrassing.

"And how is that?" Voldemort asked impatiently.

The Doctor panicked internally. _Rassilon, _why did everything have to be so difficult? "The media."

"The media?" Voldemort repeated, clearly prodding for a clearer answer than that.

"The media," the Doctor recited, "the main means of mass communication. This can include television, newspapers, journals-"

"Enough," Voldemort interrupted, and the Doctor obediently fell silent. Was that a slight smirk he saw on Snape's face? "Tell me about regeneration."

"Regeneration is the process of being regenerated."

Was it wrong that he was enjoying this, ever so slightly?

"How is it achieved?" Voldemort stressed, a slight hiss entering his voice.

"By regenerating everything that requires regeneration, thus achieving a regenerated state."

"How does a Time Lord regenerate?" Voldemort said, not one to give up.

"By regenerating every cell in the body."

"And how would he do that?"

Suddenly all enjoyment was wiped away by panic once more. He was tempted to remain silent, but knew that if he did that Voldemort would know that he wasn't really under the control of the Veritaserum, and then he really would be in trouble. He decided to focus on semantics again. After all, it was an automatic process, so _technically_ the Time Lord wouldn't regenerate, his body would. If that even made sense.

"He wouldn't," was his final answer.

That seemed to confuse Voldemort. "He would not?"

"No," agreed the Doctor.

"But a Time Lord can regenerate."

"Correct."

"Why would he not regenerate?" Voldemort asked, hiding his confusion admirably.

"That depends on the circumstances."

"What circumstances?"

"The circumstances surrounding death."

If he was more open, the Doctor was fairly certain that Voldemort would currently be pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Can regeneration be induced?"

"Yes."

"What by?"

"Death."

"My Lord," Bellatrix interrupted, stepping forward slightly, "he is lying!"

"Actually," Snape countered in his typical, relaxed drawl, "I think you will find that he has ingested 3 times the normal dosage, Bellatrix."

"He isn't human!" Bellatrix yelled.

Snape sneered at her. "He is under its effects, even you can see that."

When Bellatrix looked as though she could hex Snape on the spot, Voldemort raised a hand, stopping her in her tracks. "You are quite sure, Severus?"

Snape nodded. "Quite sure, my Lord."

"And if we were to give him another dose of Veritaserum?"

"The effects would be counterproductive, my Lord. I have tried it on human subjects. The only result was a waking coma; I was unable to get any further answers from them."

Voldemort didn't look happy about this. "Very well."

"But, my Lord-"

"That is _enough_, Bellatrix!" Voldemort said, rounding on her. Bellatrix immediately fell silent.

"My Lord," Snape said tentatively, "if I may venture to give you an observation?" Voldemort's only reply was a stony silence, but Snape continued nevertheless. "Veritaserum is severely impeded by its nature. It is impossible to get the answers required if one does not know the necessary questions. Even a technicality in language can lead to a reply different to the one aimed for."

"Then you will develop something better," Voldemort said shortly.

Snape inclined his head. "Yes, my Lord."

"Until then," Voldemort continued, "you will analyse him as discussed."

"Yes, my Lord."

Voldemort flicked his wand and exited the cell without a backwards glance at the Doctor, who was still on the floor in the grips of the potion that Snape had given him. Bellatrix remained, but she too seemed unaware of the Doctor's presence, and was instead glaring at Snape.

"You lied."

"I did not lie," Snape contradicted, still sounding as calm as ever. "However, I can understand how it would seem so to someone as unversed in the subject of Potions as yourself, Bellatrix. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do for our Lord, and your presence is not required."

Spitting on the ground, Bellatrix angrily flounced out of the cell.


	8. River's Adventures in Wonderland

**7. River's Adventures in Wonderland.**

"So it's definitely ready now?" Amy asked, staring at the Dimension Canon that River was wearing around her neck.

"Yes."

"But it doesn't look any different," Rory pointed out.

"I only had to add something to the existing information on the Doctor," River explained, "so it was a relatively simple process as far as Dimension Canons go."

"So you can find him?" Amy asked. "You can find _our_ Doctor?"

"Yes," River confirmed, getting up from the sofa and picking her bag up from the floor. Her parents stood too, but River shook her head. "You still can't come with me."

"You can't go by yourself!" Amy exclaimed, gesturing randomly around the room. "What if you need help?"

"I'm a big girl now, Mother," she said, jokingly, and immediately regretted it when Amy's face fell.

"The Doctor could be anywhere!" Rory said before River could say anything to comfort Amy. "He could have been pulled into an alternate version of – I don't know – those vampires we found in Venice!"

"Or Angels," Amy said.

"All the more reason for you both to stay here," River insisted. "It might take me quite a while to find him, and I may be going into a universe where the timeline runs at a different speed to ours, so don't be worried if I don't come back straight away."

"But-" Amy protested, but River interrupted her.

"I love you both. Goodbye."

And before they could protest or reach her – she had seen Amy lunging desperately across the room – River pressed the button and disappeared. Thankful that she had landed on her feet this time, River drew in a large lungful of air. If the vortex manipulator had taken a bit of getting used to, this method of travel was even worse. She felt like she had held her breath and her chest had been squeezed. She had always wondered what it would feel like to be attacked by a boa constrictor. Perhaps it was a similar experience.

The Doctor might know. The man had died so many interesting deaths, after all.

Having caught her breath, River looked around, only mildly surprised to find herself in a dense forest. Much better than a secret government lab, after all. She'd already had to rescue him from one of those once. Though according to him, it was twice in his timeline. It was so hard to keep these things straight in her head.

Thankfully it was still day time so she visually scanned the area. It looked like Earth, but that was hardly saying much. After a quick pat on the gun holster around her waist to make sure that it was still there and hadn't been lost in the gap between universes, River began picking her way through the forest.

It was eerily quiet here, yet she had the impression that something – or lots of things – was watching her. She peered at the trees. They didn't move. Not sentient then. Every so often there was a rustling as the wind lightly brushed the tree tops, and bird calls followed by the flapping of wings, but that was all.

Her breath puffed out in front of her and she suddenly realised that she was very cold, now that the effects from the dimension canon were wearing off. She shrugged off her back pack and put it on the ground, noticing a small smattering of snow, but not much else. The trees must have acted as a natural roof. She pulled a thick white coat from her bigger-on-the-inside bag and put it on, instantly noticing the difference. A lot of rummaging around produced matching gloves, and she pulled them on too before shouldering her bag once more and continuing on her way.

She walked for what felt like hours, tripping over roots, sliding on small patches of snow and once almost being pooed on by a particularly low flying bird. She kept her eyes peeled for any sign of which planet she was on, but saw mainly normal looking birds and insects, and found herself quickly getting bored of the scenery.

Until she saw a winged horse. River stopped dead in her tracks and stared.

"Ok, definitely not Earth, then."

She had to hope that it was a planet where they at least recognised English, because she honestly had no idea if the TARDIS could even translate languages in another universe. And even if it could, would the languages have differences to the universe she was used to? For the sake of finding the Doctor, she really hoped not. Fortunately, she was fluent in a few Earth languages as well as a couple of the main alien ones – Gallifreyan being one of them, as it was occasionally vital for her archaeological exploits – so she should be able to manage. She didn't know if the same could be said of the Doctor.

Recovering from her initial surprise, River crept closer to the winged horse and inspected it from her position behind a tree, not wanting to get close in case she angered it. She could hardly die on the rescue mission.

It was tall and skeletal, grey in colour, and she knew that the wings would stretch for several meters on either side if they were not currently folded against its body. At the moment it was distracted, its face buried in the undergrowth, no doubt sniffing for food.

Aware that time was running out and that the light would only last for an hour or two more, River pressed on, hoping that she wasn't going in circles. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw an impossibly large spider hurriedly scurrying away from the strange winged horse, but when she blinked it was gone, and she thought that she must have imagined it.

Finally the trees began to thin gradually and snow became thicker on the ground. The wind became slightly sharper and the sound of the wildlife quieter. She must be going in the right direction.

The undergrowth thinned out and she happened upon a thin, rough path leading towards an open space ahead, so headed for it, hoping to find some sort of civilisation. If she could find people, she could ask if they had noticed the Doctor or, at the very least, find a place to stay while she searched for him.

The grass was short and well-trimmed now, and to her left further down a hill River noticed a small wooden cabin with a vegetable patch outside. But what really caught her attention was the giant castle perched on top of the hills, looking majestic in the setting sun, which cast a strange glow on the snow that covered it. It was almost like a scene from a snow globe. She turned in a circle, noting the forest that she had arrived in, rolling hills, and then the cabin once more. There was no other civilisation in sight.

She trudged through the snow, hearing it crunch under her feet. Her breath came in bigger puffs now, pooling in front of her face, and she could feel her hair springing about uncontrollably; travel outside of the TARDIS always seemed to increase its hate for the laws of gravity.

As she got closer to the castle she could see birds flying around above one of the towers, heading off into the distance. Bright lights burned from the windows, looking invitingly warm after such a long, cold journey. She could hear voices belonging to children running around outside, though they were very few in number. She thought that this was unexpected, given the size of the castle and the blanket of snow – surely there should be more?

Their voices got louder with every step they took, and she noticed that some were waving sticks around, while others seemed to launch the snowballs a surprising distance away.

Super human strength?

"_Wingardium leviosa_!" One of them suddenly yelled, laughing, pointing a stick at a nearby snowman, which rose off the ground and began dancing in the air.

"Stop it!" Another yelled, running over to the laughing child. "You'll make the nose fall off!"

River stared. _Wingardium leviosa_? She shook her head. It couldn't be. Surely it was impossible. Was she going mad?

But even as she was wondering this, the indignant student threw a snowball at the one levitating the snowman, who let the snowman drop and conjured some sort of force field out of thin air, the snowball bouncing right off.

"What sort of person uses _Protego_ in a snowball fight?" The one who had thrown the snowball moaned. "That's just cheating."

The one who had conjured the force field scoffed. "You're such a Muggle."

Ok, she was definitely going mad. _But then again_… London with zeppelins popped into her mind. It might just be possible. She had definitely seen societies that seemed to work on unconventional scientific laws, and even the Doctor had mentioned Shakespeare and witches, though he had gotten so excited while telling the story that she had just assumed that he had made it up. He had been rather hyper at the time.

River smirked. _Poor Sweetie. _Haribo never was good for him.

She suddenly realised that the children had stopped playing and were staring at her. "Hello?" One of them said, sounding slightly nervous. The others stared at her with plain distrust. "Who are you?"

"A visitor." Be vague. Always the best approach when you have no idea where you are.

"How did you get in here?" Another asked.

"I walked," she said, simply. She nodded her head at the castle. "Is there anyone in?"

The levitator of snowmen frowned. "This is Hogwarts. You can't just _walk in_."

River shrugged. "Yes I can. Official business." And with that, she walked towards what she assumed to be the main entrance, not even leaving them the chance to argue. Which, of course, they wouldn't. Students rarely did.

The first thing she noticed was that everything was made of stone and beautifully crafted, as though every single person involved in this project had really loved their work. She took a moment to admire the architecture, peering at twirls and tiny figurines that seemed not to have diminished with time, before she looked up and took in the rest of the room. She was in an entrance hall. Before her stretched a stone staircase, and to her right on the same floor were two huge wooden doors. From within she could hear the dim talking of a small crowd. Around the door and on all the walls were portraits, hundreds and hundreds of them.

And they all turned around to stare at her. She stared right back, and was amused to note that some actually broke her gaze, mumbling in embarrassment, while others deepened their glares. She walked up to one of them and admired it, noting the intricate brushwork, the bright colours, the spark in the eyes that had somehow been captured.

She reached out to gently lay a hand on the frame. "So realistic," she marvelled, murmuring to herself.

If she had not been travelling with the Doctor for so long, lived in Stormcage and been hardened by her childhood run by The Silence, River would have flinched at what happened next. The portrait scoffed and turned to glare at her. "And you're pretty realistic too, young lady."

She silently moved away from it and up the staircase, knowing that she would find no one but students in what had to be the Great Hall at this time of day. A ghost that she recognised to be the Bloody Baron drifted mournfully passed, not even seeming to notice her.

At the top of the staircase was a long corridor, again with portraits on every available surface, but also a few suits of armour. But what really caught her eye this time were the moving staircases, which groaned and shifted every few minutes. Intellectually, she knew that this was not that dissimilar to escalators, but there was just something impressive about the way they moved in complete coordination with each other, almost as though they were sentient.

She regarded them for a moment, suddenly feeling very lost and alone without the Doctor there bouncing around from one thing to another, and tried to work out which one to take. She had read all of the books, when she had been growing up in Leadworth, and had even been dragged to the cinema to watch the films by Amy, though she had always preferred her own imagination to the big screen, wonderful though it was. She had wanted to keep the magical, fantastical, private world to herself. It was so much easier to pretend that it was a secret when reading it alone than it had been in a crowded cinema. It had been something that made her feel as though she belonged, made her feel special, as though magic was really possible. It had made her feel that, maybe, life wasn't as terrible as she had so far seen it to be.

She supposed some would find it sad that a world with Voldemort, Death Eaters and the persecution of Muggles had been a comfort to her, but it was the truth.

"Are you lost?" A mild, very old voice suddenly asked her, jolting River from her reverie.

She turned around and found herself face to face with a tall, thin wizard. His eyebrows and hair were completely white, and his eyes were set above sharp cheekbones. His face was covered with the wrinkles of the wise, and the old eyes sparkled at her with all the youth and energy of a twenty year old man. His robes were bright and badly coordinated, and he was wearing a Santa hat as though it were the most natural thing in the world. She immediately knew who he was.

"I'm looking for Professor Dumbledore," she said.

"I am he." He peered at her curiously, noting her clothes and the vortex manipulator that she still wore around her wrist, in the case of an emergency escape. "You appear to have travelled a long way, Miss…"

"Mrs," she corrected, not really knowing why. She and the Doctor were not even officially married. Not in this version of reality, anyway. "River Song."

His eyebrows rose at that. "River Song," he repeated, his old voice adding a strange lilt to her name. "A very pretty name."

She didn't really know what to say to that, so she just nodded her head. That was the last thing she had expected. Questions on where she had come from, yes, but not that.

Dumbledore glanced calmly around before looking back to River. "Perhaps my office would be a more ideal destination?"

"Yes," she agreed. "Lead the way, Professor."

Even with her impeccable sense of direction, River found herself getting completely lost as Dumbledore led her through a labyrinth of corridors, through a few ghosts, and across a few moving staircases. But she recognised the spiral staircase and stone statues looming ahead of her: Dumbledore's office.

"Drooble's Best Blowing Gum," Dumbledore said clearly. The gargoyles leapt out of the way and they stepped onto the moving staircase. "Always gets stuck in my beard," he told her with complete seriousness, and River had to resist the absurd urge to laugh.

His office was just as she had imagined and as the films had described. Portraits lined the walls, talking quietly with one another – a few conversing in what appeared to be an ancient form of English. A majestic desk was strewn with odd knick knacks and gadgets, some of them whirring almost inaudibly. And, of course, there was Fawkes, perched proudly in the corner and watching River with eagle-like eyes. Dumbledore settled himself behind his desk and inclined his head at a chair, indicating that River sit down.

"Now," the old wizard said once they were both settled, "let us discuss the most important matter first. Tea?"

She blinked, before telling herself that, really, she should hardly be surprised, this was _Dumbledore_. She nodded.

"Earl Grey?"

"That would be lovely, thank you."

Dumbledore waved his hand and a teapot leapt up from the desk, pouring its contents into two cups. "Milk? Sugar?"

"No, thank you."

"Very brave," Dumbledore remarked, flicking milk and six cubes of sugar into his. "Or perhaps I am just an old man with an absurdly sweet tooth."

The tea cup set itself down in front of River, and she took a tentative sip. It didn't feel like he had put anything in it, and she had to admit that it felt nice and warm after the snow and wind.

"I can assure you," Dumbledore said wryly, when he saw her hesitate, "that there are no, ah, _extra_ ingredients."

River swallowed. "So I see."

He waved a hand at a plate of biscuits, which zoomed over to her and began floating in front of her face, making her go cross eyed, and refusing to move until she awkwardly took one, whereupon it settled itself back on the table.

"Now, Mrs River Song, how may I help you?"

"I'm looking for a missing person."

"Why not go to the Aurors?" Dumbledore asked, though he seemed to already know the answer.

"Given the circumstances," River replied, "you seemed to be the best" (and only, her mind added, remembering the barren landscape) "person to ask."

"A Muggle or a Squib?" Dumbledore asked politely, his clear gaze boring into hers.

River floundered for a moment, finding herself wondering which one the Doctor would be. Unfortunately, she must have hesitated for slightly too long, or Dumbledore read something in her expression – _Legilimens_, her mind whispered – because he continued talking.

"Yes, I had an inkling that you were not from our world. You dress like a Muggle yet were able to wander onto Hogwarts grounds," he explained when she remained silent. "That is a rather rare occurrence. Where, may I ask, are you from?"

"Earth."

Dumbledore's expression became even more curious. "I see. And your missing person? Your husband, I assume?"

"Yes," River replied. "He went missing… near here." In fact, she had no idea if the dimension canon had taken her to the area the Doctor had disappeared in, or just to the right universe. She hoped it was the former. "He's been gone for quite some time."

"I am afraid that disappearances are rather common place in these times," Dumbledore said, his eyes still staring right into her soul, "but I would venture a guess that you are already aware of that."

River nodded, knowing it was useless to lie at this point. "Mainly Muggles and Muggle-borns." Despite the sinking feeling in her stomach, her hand automatically tipped tea into her mouth. "But have you seen anyone around here recently?"

"Only the occasional student."

There was a beat of silence during which Dumbledore's expression became grave.

"I am afraid that there is rather little that I can do."

River sighed.

"However," Dumbledore added, "there is a position needing to be filled at the school."

River's eyebrows shot to her hairline. "What makes you think that I am suitable for the job?" She asked, genuinely curious.

"I can see that you have come a long way," he said, suddenly completely serious, the twinkle gone. "An unfathomable distance. The fact that you managed to walk onto the grounds without the wards going off…" If possible, his stare became even more intense, and River felt a strange tingling sensation in the front of her mind.

He was trying to get further into her mind. Using the techniques that the Doctor had taught her, River erected a mental wall. A vague sensation of bemusement entered her mind.

"Yes," Dumbledore murmured, and the tickling stopped as his twinkle returned, "best to keep you on the grounds, I should think." He offered her a smile. "Hogwarts has a way of giving those who live within what they most need. Now, I believe there is an old classroom somewhere that I can transform into quarters for you," he added, rising from his desk. "I will explain your duties along the way."


End file.
